City systems

Civilization Museum · 04

Medicine, Care & Public Health

From preventing disease to improving care, surgery, and treatment, this wall follows how cats gradually made medicine safer, more reliable, and more attentive to patients themselves.

Prevention & Public Health

Jenner Cat reviews inoculation notes and prepares an early vaccination tool in a rural clinic.
01

Jenner Cat

Jenner Cat showed that medicine need not only respond after illness appears; it can protect in advance. Through cowpox inoculation, he helped cats see that the body can learn to defend itself first.

Semmelweis Cat carefully washes his paws in a hospital washing area while reviewing case records.
02

Semmelweis Cat

Semmelweis Cat realized that caregivers themselves could carry danger to patients. Careful handwashing is not just courtesy; it is an important medical practice for reducing infection.

John Snow Cat marks case locations on a map and points toward a public water source.
03

John Snow Cat

John Snow Cat searched for patterns among case locations, addresses, and water sources. Treating disease means not only caring for individual patients, but also finding the public causes making many cats ill at once.

Care & Surgical Safety

Nightingale Cat records nursing details and adjusts a patient’s surroundings in a nighttime ward.
04

Nightingale Cat

Nightingale Cat made care, cleanliness, ventilation, and statistics central to medicine. Nursing is not secondary to treatment; it changes outcomes in its own right.

Lister Cat cleans instruments and reviews surgical preparations in an operating room antechamber.
05

Lister Cat

Lister Cat brought invisible infection risk into surgical thinking. Cleaning instruments, wounds, and surroundings gave surgery a better chance to truly help patients.

Morton Cat watches an anesthesia apparatus and a patient’s breathing in a historical surgical demonstration room.
06

Morton Cat

The anesthesia milestone represented by Morton Cat meant surgery no longer had to be inseparable from unbearable pain. Medicine must not only perform procedures, but also reduce suffering during them.

Roentgen Cat studies an X-ray image of a cat’s paw bones in a laboratory.
07

Roentgen Cat

Roentgen Cat let physicians see parts of the body’s interior without opening it. Medicine gained a new way of looking inside.

Diagnosis & Treatment

Landsteiner Cat compares compatibility notes for different blood samples in a laboratory.
08

Landsteiner Cat

Landsteiner Cat showed that blood from different individuals cannot simply be mixed at will. Recognizing blood types and compatibility made transfusion far safer.

Banting Cat checks insulin samples and blood-sugar records in a research-and-treatment setting.
09

Banting Cat

With fellow researchers, Banting Cat helped advance insulin therapy, so diabetes no longer meant an almost immediate slide into danger. Chronic illness could be managed through continuing treatment.

Fleming Cat studies the bacteria-free area around mold in a culture dish and records the result.
10

Fleming Cat

Fleming Cat noticed a region around mold where bacteria struggled to grow, opening the path toward penicillin. Later researchers and teams turned that observation into a usable treatment.